Update: Bumped to the top as well. Reader Crosspatch confirms the fact that the world is NOT warming right now (or has been for the last decade) in this story he found and linked in the comments section: (Crosspatch is well versed on the matter of climate):

The salient facts are these. First, the accepted global average temperature statistics used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change show that no ground-based warming has occurred since 1998. Oddly, this eight-year-long temperature stasis has occurred despite an increase over the same period of 15 parts per million (or 4 per cent) in atmospheric CO2.

Second, lower atmosphere satellite-based temperature measurements, if corrected for non-greenhouse influences such as El Nino events and large volcanic eruptions, show little if any global warming since 1979, a period over which atmospheric CO2 has increased by 55 ppm (17 per cent).

Third, there are strong indications from solar studies that Earth’s current temperature stasis will be followed by climatic cooling over the next few decades.

Now there may be a slight uptick or the planet may be in a near 3 decade steady range, but one thing is clear – we are not overheating at a rapid rate like some claim wildly (Internet-Al). – end update

The man made global warming crowd wants the world to pay a heavy price for their Chicken Little claims. But the fact is they have based their religion of man-made global warming on faulty and speculative claims. If we are to sacrifice a generation of growth and freedom to attempt to change nature, we should be able to demand quality claims. But we are not getting them. It appears some of the man made global warming is coming from air conditioning vents (seriously) and not CO2 levels (which always rise when the Earth’s temperature has risen):

But Anthony Watts of Chico, Calif., suspects NOAA temperature readings are not all they’re cracked up to be. As the former TV meteorologist explains on his sophisticated, newly hatched Web site surfacestations.org, he has set out to do what big-time armchair-climate modelers like Hansen and no one else has ever done – physically quality-check each weather station to see if it’s being operated properly.

To assure accuracy, stations (essentially older thermometers in little four-legged wooden sheds or digital thermometers mounted on poles) should be 100 feet from buildings, not placed on hot concrete, etc. But as photos on Watts’ site show, the station in Forest Grove, Ore., stands 10 feet from an air-conditioning exhaust vent. In Roseburg, Ore., it’s on a rooftop near an AC unit. In Tahoe, Calif., it’s next to a drum where trash is burned.

Watts, who says he’s a man of facts and science, isn’t jumping to any rash conclusions based on the 40-some weather stations his volunteers have checked so far. But he said Tuesday that what he’s finding raises doubts about NOAA’s past and current temperature reports.

“I believe we will be able to demonstrate that some of the global warming increase is not from CO2 but from localized changes in the temperature-measurement environment.”

For those not familiar with the lingo “localized changes” means the measured effect of development on cities. As we all know cities retain heat more and therefore are always warmer than the suburbs or the rural areas nearby. And what is the reality? The reality is NO ONE KNOWS! Check out the adjustment NOAA just made to the historical temperature record:

Meanwhile, you probably missed the latest about 2006. As NOAA reported on May 1 – with minimum mainstream-media fanfare – 2006 actually was the second- warmest year ever recorded in America, not the first. At an annual average of 54.9 degrees F, it was a whopping 0.08 degrees cooler than 1998, still the hottest year.

In other words it has not been warming up since 1998. Statistically a .08 degree difference is basically the same temperature. So for the last decade the temperature has not moved much at all. Contrary to the hyperventilating by the warming hypochondriacs. The best thing to do is what we have been doing. Waiting to see if ANY of the dire predictions ever show a sign of coming true (none have except increase in CO2 levels, which is not necessarily a bad thing). And we should listen to the ENTIRE scientific community which is split on the CAUSE of the warming (yes, everyone knows the Earth has been warming for some 400 years now):

Reid Bryson, known as the father of scientific climatology, considers global warming a bunch of hooey.

The UW-Madison professor emeritus, who stands against the scientific consensus on this issue, is referred to as a global warming skeptic. But he is not skeptical that global warming exists, he is just doubtful that humans are the cause of it.

There is no question the earth has been warming. It is coming out of the “Little Ice Age,” he said in an interview this week.

“However, there is no credible evidence that it is due to mankind and carbon dioxide. We’ve been coming out of a Little Ice Age for 300 years. We have not been making very much carbon dioxide for 300 years. It’s been warming up for a long time,” Bryson said.

The real skeptics, those who believe it is primarily due to mankind’s CO2 production (no proof) and reversible (again, no proof) is that CO2 has been rising as the temperaturs rises. But that, as we know from the record, is what ALWAYS has happened when the Earth warms. When it warms CO2 levels go up, when it cools CO2 levels go down. It has been doing this for millions of years since the oxygen based atmosphere we have now was created, along with living organisms. Check out the skeptics to the grand skeptic:

There are innumerable studies that show that the shoe fits for global warming, I guess you could say, and the human causation for it,” McKinley said.

“We understand very well the basic process of the greenhouse effect, which is that we know that the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases the heat trapped by the atmosphere. You put one dollar more in the bank and you have one dollar more there tomorrow. It’s a very clear feedback,” she said.

[AJStrata note: but as has been shown, CO2 rises in response to temperature as a lagging indicator – no coment regarding this conflicting research]

Carbon dioxide emissions have been increasing over the industrial period, about 200 years, and can be observed very clearly through about 100 monitoring stations worldwide, McKinley said.

[AJStrata note: but as has been shown, CO2 rises in response to temperature as a lagging indicator – no coment regarding this conflicting research]

The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing consistently with the amount that humans are putting into the atmosphere, she said.

“We know humans are putting it there, we understand the basic mechanism and we know that the temperatures are warming. Many, many, many studies illustrate that both at the global scale and at the regional scale.”

[AJStrata note: it is convenient to point to an underlying warming trend and then say it is due to another rising indicator. For example, the stock market has risen all this time as well, so it too could be the driver for global warming. Or maybe it is an inverse curve. The value of a dollar has plummeted during this time of warming, so maybe that is the cause. Just because something happens at the same time doesn’t mean they are linked.]

She cited the work of John Magnuson, a UW-Madison professor emeritus of limnology who is internationally known for his lake studies. Magnuson records the number of days of ice on the lakes in southern Wisconsin, including Mendota and Monona.
His research shows that over the course of the last 150 years, the average has gone from about four months of ice cover to more like 2.5 months, McKinley said.

[AJStrata note: of course, if the world was coming out of a mini ice age and there were no humans we would expect to see, surprise, less ice cover on lakes. This is one of those Duh! results – like dropping an apple and declaring “gravity still works”.]

Bryson would say that it is due to coming out of an Ice Age, McKinley notes, “but the rate of change that we are seeing on the planet is inconsistent with changes in the past that have been due to an Ice Age.”

How inconsistent? Where you comparing ice ages or mini ice ages? And were these assumptions based on the faulty sensors we see above? Or the faulty temperature graphs that came out a few years ago because ‘scientists’ did not know how to use the statistical models they selected and got a bad graph from nothing more than ignorance? The temperatures for the last ten years have been statistically flat if what NOAA is saying is true about temps drom 1998 and 2006. There is no conflict in the scientific record, it is just not as good as people claim and does not umambiguously point in one direction. I will use the same example I always use between sceince fact and scientific theories. Gravity is not a theory – it is a fact. If someone wants to debate it with me we will base jump while we discuss it – you will have to go without a parachute. The cause for the extinction of the dinosaurs is not a scientific fact yet. There are strong theories based on the archeological and geological record, but these do not equate to facts.

Even more tenuous are the theories behind man-made global warming and the ability to adjust the global warming by adjusting our CO2 emission levels. These theories rest on a very shakey set of premises which have never addressed the conflicting information to create an integrated theory which takes into account all the data. The thing about science is the theories have to cover all the data and paint a coherent picture that shows how CO2 is a lagging indicator in other warming periods and why it would be a leading cause in this one (CO2 levels are not out of historical bounds). So in the grand spectrum of scientific knowledge man-made global warming is not equal to other scientific facts or theories. Not by a long shot.